Brain should be the symbol of Love. Not the heart. — Chapter 1
Lust, attraction and attachment are the three important feelings that fuel the phenomenon called Love. If someone had told my teenage self ‘Lust’ is related to ‘Love’, I would have gone to a war with them. I used to think it was magical, like portrayed in all those movies I loved. Then I grew up.
My recent quest to understand human evolution led me to believe in a fact. Everything that a human experiences comes from his/her Brain. Not the heart or intestines or even some sexual organs. I used to think that our sexual organs have their own brain. May be because they were not in my control when watching porn (or even few minutes later). So Brain is the culprit. Once you understand this truth, you will know, Love is not from the heaven. I am sorry kid, its just in your brain.
Lust, attraction and attachment
This dangerous yet wonderful organ, takes full responsibility for Love and all that causes it. The causes are lust, attraction and attachment. I think Greek was close enough to define these as different types of Love. Eros which covers lust and attraction. Storge is a word which defines the attachment. Even they made a mistake imagining, it starts after an arrow pierces your heart. Heart, Oh come on! That poor thing just pumps blood.
Lust
Let’s talk about Lust first. Lust is caused mainly by sexually dimorphic nucleus (SDN). A densely packed cluster of cells in our brain (In a portion called Hypothalmus). This SDN controls all sexual behaviors from arousal till ejaculation. Simply put, this small part of your brain called Hypothalmus makes you want the sex, with the gender your brain is programmed to like.
As SDN is in Hypothalmus which connects nervous system to the endocrine system (testicles and ovaries), it has direct connection to the testosterones. it triggers more libido proportionate to the amount of testosterones we have. The same applies to women too, but in a lesser magnitude, as the testosterone levels are not significant. One reason why they don’t write poems on men to attract them. I wrote poems to attract a girl who friend zoned me few years back. “Damn you SDN. You freaking jerk!”
Now you know what attracted you to that cute girl/hunky boy in college. If you say we love each other and it is not lust, you are fooling yourself. It is how nature wants us to be, it wants the human race to survive. Reproduction is programmed in our brain. You can not say we developed the app by ourselves and it runs, you need a booted OS to run it. That fundamental block is actually triggered by SDN.
This is why we say opposite poles attract each other. It is not the character of your partner which was totally different from yours that made you want him/her. Its just because your brain wanted the other sex as a basic behavior. It just pushed you on a course towards an intercourse.
Have you already started arguing in your brain about the truth of what I claimed. Wait hear this one too. It is not always Hypothalmus induced Lust which drives us towards love. If that is the case then the Love will not survive the test of time.
Not all love stories are written by testosterones. Some are written by Dopamines and Oxytocin too.
Wanna know how? Check out the next chapter. Attraction.
